I sat anxiously in my high school math class and I looked around at the walls, which were covered in posters of quadratic equations, conic sections, hyperbolas, hypersphericalpolyology, and what the plus and minus symbols stand for. My teacher was explaining why (2B-ABy-AC+B)/(A2+B2) was the most important formula known to man and how, without it, the Earth would crash straight into Mars. Months of class had passed and, try as I might, I could not dispel the cloud of bewilderment that hung over my head. At this point, I could take no more. I stood up and said, “Sorry, I didn’t realize that this was Arabic class, I think I’m in the wrong place.” Then, further astonishing my peers, I exited the classroom, high fiving a life-size cardboard cutout of Ben Franklin as I walked through the door.
Alas, Mr. Baker didn’t think my joke was funny or heroic at all, and I received a less-than-marvelous grade that semester. Although I came close to failing math, I learned a few important things. For one, (2B-ABy-AC+B)/(A2+B2) is really important, but more importantly, I learned that I was destined to be an English major.
Fast forward to today. Here I am at Georgetown, through a miraculous oversight on the part of the Admissions Office. While most people on my floor are majoring in Government, International Business, or Something-Important-With-A-Big-Word-In-It, I am an English major.
It’s no walk in the park, believe you me. The other day my French friend asked me what I am studying, and when I told her she said, “Mais pourquoi? You already speak English.” Her mystified response is typical. Back home, when I run into people I know at the supermarket and they ask me what my major is, my response is directly followed by their abrupt departure. How am I supposed to feel confident when announcing my major is, to most people, synonymous with saying, “Hello! I am contagious with the plague, and I want to lick your open wound”?
Last week, when the 400th person in a row asked me how I felt about being unemployed after college, I went into panic mode. After all, they were right. I will never get a job. I am on the fast track to poverty, destitution and reciting Shakespeare to passersby for spare change. (2B-ABy-AC+B)/(A2+B2) really is the most important formula in the world! And I don’t know what it means! Suddenly engulfed by paranoia, I rushed to my dean and told him I intended to switch into the Business School.
“Uhh, Liz, you realize that you’ve never taken economics, calculus, accounting … basically you’ve had no experience in business. The Business School deans usually like to see that transfer students have interest in what they are going to be studying.”
Oh, crap. “Yeah, but … well, wanna hear a Dorothy Parker poem? I’ve memorized a lot of them,” I replied, floundering. Okay, so I’d have some hurdles to conquer, like calculus, accounting, two semesters of econ and business statistics. Just because I hate math doesn’t mean I can’t get through those courses. I mean, calculus doesn’t really have to do with math, does it? I wouldn’t know, because I’ve never taken it.
I returned to my room to talk to my roommate, a Business School student. She, in an effort to be helpful, pulled out a sheet of paper with all of the business courses on it.
“You could definitely do it,” she advocated. I looked down at the paper. As words like “management” and “finance” swam before me on the page, I suddenly snapped back to reality. Nothing had changed; it still seemed like Chinese to me.
So here I am in the Liberal Arts Seminar. I’ve spent two weeks of my life figuring out whether or not Coleridge ever finished writing “Kubla Khan.” I can name most of the characters in Hamlet. I love what I study, and even though I am the only English major I know, I am still happy that I chose to follow my dreams. I have resigned myself to the fact that I will never have a Benz, be a CEO or ever understand what (2B-ABy-AC+B)/(A2+B2) means. I’m learning, though, that material things aren’t as important as they seem.
